New York couple forced to forfeit $175,000 in CDL fraud case

A federal judge has ordered the owner-operators of a commercial driving school in Brooklyn to forfeit cash and assets totaling more than $175,000 for their role in commercial driver’s license testing fraud scheme.

Spouses Ying Wai Phillip Ng and Pui Kuen Ng, owner-operators of a commercial driving school, N&Y Professional Service Line in Brooklyn, were sentenced on May 13 in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn for their role in the scheme. In addition to the forfeiture, Phillip Ng was sentenced to 100 hours of community service, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General.

The couple pleaded guilty in January to fraud in connection with identification documents, according to the OIG release.

From approximately 2001 to 2012, the Ngs assisted customers in taking the written New York State CDL exam by providing the answers to test takers. Many of the driving school’s customers did not speak or write in English. The school routinely provided certain customers with covert camera equipment prior to taking the CDL exam, which was viewed remotely. This enabled the defendants to provide the test answers to the customers through a pre-arranged pager mechanism, which beeped a certain number of times to denote the correct answers on the exams. It is estimated that as many as 500 CDL applicants passed the exam as a result of this scheme.

As part of their guilty pleas, the Ngs agreed to be jointly and severally liable for a forfeiture money judgment in the amount of $125,000 in cash, forfeited assets of $50,645 in seized bank funds, and a 2004 Toyota Sienna used in the commission of the crime.

The investigation was conducted by the OIG with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – El Dorado Task Force.